Story # 5 - “Can’t We Get Some Managers
With Some Backbone?”
Taken from "The End of Management Alchemy: Some Fun with the Findings of Elliott Jaques and How Requisite Organization Began" by Darwin Mott, 2015.
When introducing this science, people often looked at me as if we were
from another planet. You know: a
2-headed alien consultant who wants to talk about authority, “real” managers,
“right distance” strata, accountability, good teams vs. bad teams, and all that
nonsense. It’s little wonder that the
early believers in other sciences were sometimes persecuted and jailed.
But if you will stay separate from the maddened crowd of alchemists
through this story, you will see how authoritative (not authoritarian)
managerial leadership can be established at every managerial stratum using this
science. And managers no longer need to
behave like ameba or other spineless creatures.
You may be
thinking that this management science field of knowledge could never work in a
unionized environment. Well that’s what
I thought too for a while. But that is
anything but the case. You see, contrary
to popular belief, people – whether they happen to carry a union card or not –
actually yearn for authority. But, I
must add, the authority I refer to here is not authoritarian, but
authoritative.
At Glacier
Metals Company in the 1960’s, the trade unionists that represented the workers
on the shop floor were fed up with the wishy-washy management about the
place. They went to Elliott Jaques, who
was retained now halftime doing “social analysis” work with Glacier.
“Come on, Doc,
can’t we get some managers with some backbone around here?” they asked in a
boldfaced manner that seems part of the make-up of strong-minded trade
unionists on both sides of the Atlantic.
“There is so damn much ‘buck-passing’ going on, and we can’t get any
answers for our members out of the managers.
All they say is they can’t make any decisions. They want the authority to fire people, but
can’t get it. They complain it takes 2
years to fire anybody. Can’t we work out
their legitimate authorities and so on?”
Sound familiar?
Thus began the
project: to outline the minimal authorities that a manager needed, if he or she
were to be held fully accountable for the work of others. After a good deal of work over the succeeding
years they came to 4 minimal authorities:
1. Veto on
appointment
2. Decide task
assignment
3. Decide merit
pay review
4. Decide
de-selection
Allow me to digress briefly before detailing these 4
to a greater degree. There is nothing
wrong with Human Resources people, except that they don’t know their dismissal
from their de-selection. In fact there
are a great number of other unclear terms and language in H.R. circles. So they have absolutely no idea what they are
talking about. Perhaps it could be said
they are the modern ministers of management alchemy.
So, back to clarifying the minimal authorities:
1, Veto on appointment - A manager cannot just hire anybody that he or she
wants. Nor can Human Resources tell the
manager who he/she must hire. But from a
slate of say 3 to 7 candidates (short-listed for the manager-once-removed to
give the manager), the manager ought to have the authority to say: “None of
these candidates are satisfactory to me.
Let’s start over. I want a new
short list with none of these people on it”.
A key point is that the manager-once-removed is
accountable for the talent pool of the company; while the manager is
accountable for work of the role.
2, Decide task assignment – This ought
to be the easy one. As my manager, you
ought to be able to decide what task(s) I should be busy with. Coaching me toward the completion, discussing
whether or not I have the necessary resources to get to the results you need
and for which you are being held accountable by your boss (or the Board, if you
are the CEO.)
3, Decide merit pay – If a
manager is to be held fully accountable for the results of a subordinate,
he/she must have the right to decide what merit increase is to be given to that
person. Salary and wage systems are an
absolute mess in the vast majority of organizations. What company do you know has managers who
decide these basic pay elements, and then holds an “eye ball to eye ball”
discussion with their subordinates(s)?
My guess is exactly zero!
4. Decide de-selection – The last
of the authorities dealt with where managers and HR have been so confused. If you are my manager, my employment contract
is not with you. It is with the
company. So you can’t dismiss me, only
the company can. (Exceptions are, of
course, blatant disregard for Financial, Environmental or Safety rules which
are clearly spelled out in employment contracts). But not for not pulling my weight in my role,
you cannot dismiss me. You can however
‘de-select’ me. After trying to bring me
along to better fill what you require of a person in my role, you can say that
I am beginning the de-selection process.
Which means that: you are telling your manager, my manager-once-removed,
that in due course, I will no longer be working for you. It is then up to your manager, my
manger-once-removed and HR to look for a new position in the company. But it is worth noting that there will be no
‘HR arm-twist’ of other managers as to where I might be relocated in the
company. Do you know the ‘HR arm
twist’? It is when HR approaches you
and says “Come on, be a sport, and take so-and-so under your wing. And you say “Why me”, knowing full well that
so-and-so cannot fill the role that is vacant under you. You see, you have # 1 – veto of appointment;
and such things as the HR arm-twist disappear.
Time for Authoritative
Management of Accountability Systems
The uncovering of these four minimal authorities
happened in the 1950’s at one employment organization, or you might call it an
accountability system. Isn’t it time to
put these 4 to work in more and more organizations? But we need to develop capable managers
accountable for creating relationships that cross time boundaries at 3 month, 1
year, 2 year, 5 year, 10 years, and 20 years.
Only then, will the organization become a respected and authoritative
system of accountability.
There we are again, faced with the importance of time
again. Since a manager needs to be the
precise right distance from subordinate team members which brings us to one
important observation of the past 6 decades.
It is that requisite organization management science works well in both
union and non-union shops. Union
members are actually a lot similar to human beings once you get up close and
personal. They crave authoritative and
accountable managerial leadership. At
Glacier Metals, by working up the 4 minimal authorities needed to be an effective
manager, they got it. So can any
organization given the necessary layering, role filling, and all the other
science-based material that is covered in these stories.
I don’t know about Glacier
Metals in the 1950’s; but today’s “how to manage your manager” approaches and
other war-paint methods used by subordinates on their managers have made this
more difficult than it ought to be. But
then, a lot of times these methods have grown out of manager and subordinate being
in the same Stratum of capability. Again, it is vital to have
manager-subordinate relationships that have a “right distance” sort of feel to
them, by setting them up to cross the boundaries below.
Time Span Bound-aries
|
Strata
|
Complexity of Information Processing (CIP)
|
Roles
|
2-5 yrs.
|
IV
|
Parallel
|
Gen. Mgr.
|
1-2 yrs.
|
III
|
Serial
|
Unit/Dept.
Mgr.
|
3 mo.- 1 yr.
|
II
|
Cumulative
|
First Line Mgr.
|
1 day - 3 mo.
|
I
|
Declarative
|
First Line Managerial Assistant (FLMA) & other
Shop & Office Floor Employees.
|
Managers with backbone, capability,
and the clear and concise managerial leadership practices detailed in the next
story helps everyone in your employment
organization; while lessoning their dependence on consultants – be they the
two-headed alien type or others.
